What's A Nice Alleged Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?

South African runner Caster Semenya’s
extraordinary performance in the 400 meter race, leaving her nearest competitor
almost three seconds behind, was also chased by peculiar questions about her
gender.

Several of her
competitors and their coaches at the World Championships in Berlin charged that
she was actually a he. “Just look at her,” said the Italian runner, left far
behind by the masculine-looking woman who barely broke a sweat as she won her
gold medal.

But what was
truly disconcerting about the controversy was that the race officials announced
it would take as long as three weeks to determine Semenya’s gender.

Three weeks? I
kept thinking about those nights in the 1970s, roaming the spring break bars on
Fort Lauderdale beach, in search of a woman sympathetic to my yearnings. I was making snap judgments on gender. I had
no idea that it would need three weeks and a panel of doctors and scientists to
determine gender.

It’s a frightening
thing. I had to decide in moments. No consultation. No panels. My God . . . I
might have been deceived by those wenches.

Except, in
retrospect, all those rejections – an unbroken string of “get lost!” and “leave
me alone” - made the gender problem, circa 1978, slightly less urgent.